


How Watson came back to life to save Holmes

by Sherloki1854



Series: Johnlock in the original canon [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Analysis, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Meta, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Freeform, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4732850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloki1854/pseuds/Sherloki1854
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In HLV, Sherlock's heart starts beating again because “John Watson is definitely in danger”. In the ACD canon, Watson defeats certain madness and death in The Devil's Foot because he realises that Holmes will die if he, Watson, does not save him. Else, that story is quite telling as well: it is far too romantic in its descriptions, Watson refers to “discretion”, a mirror to Holmes commits a crime in passionate revenge, and Holmes and Watson are living in an isolated cottage in Cornwall, for crying out loud! (And I think that there might be only one bedroom, by the way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Watson came back to life to save Holmes

The Devil's Foot

 

_My participation in some of his adventures was always a privilege which entailed_ _**discretion** _ _and reticence upon me._

 

_It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way [...][H]e was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula._

What follows now is a ridiculously long and romantic description of bleak but heartbreakingly beautiful Cornwall. Which would be entirely unnecessary if the story's main point was actually to show a detective's work and not to become the perfect covert romance.

 

_[They] entered abruptly into **our** little sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion upon the moors._

_"Mr. Holmes," said the vicar in an agitated voice, "the most extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a special Providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all England you are the one man we need."_

_I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound who hears the view-halloa._

First of all, they are so snug in “our” cottage after “our” breakfast, intending to take “our” walks. Secondly, Watson “glaring” at a vicar, trying to protect Holmes, is just a perfect image. He will not succeed, of course, and they go investigate. 

 

_My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned," said he. "With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to **our** cottage, for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mind [...]"_

(If I were single and with a friend, I personally would not call a holiday cottage “ours”. Here it is done all the time.)

 

_Finally he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet._

_"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson--all else will come._

_"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we skirted the cliffs together._

Holmes is not getting anywhere with his theories, so what does he do? Take Watson on a romantic walk on the Cornwall coast.

 

_I was shaving at **my** window in the morning when I heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden path. **Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.**_

“My window” sounds like there was one room with several windows to me, but that is not really conclusive. What is, though, is that Watson does not mention what Holmes was doing “ **already** dressed” (implying he was not, before) in the same room as Watson, which is still shaving.

 

_One realized the_ _**red-hot energy** _ _which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was_ _**tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with eager activity** _ _._

I do not feel like I needed to say anything about this.

 

_Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am not likely ever to forget._

No, you will not forget that experiment, and for a very good reason...

 

_"[W]e will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair **unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson.** This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face to face. [...]"_

_They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul._ _**A freezing horror took possession of me.** _ _I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and_ _**had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror--the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes,** _ _and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were_ _**lying side by side** _ _, conscious only of the_ _**glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in** _ _. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads,_ _**and looking with apprehension at each other** _ _to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone._

_**"Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, "I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry."** _

_**"You know," I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you."** _

Finding a more romantic scene in any book whatsoever is impossible. At least, I am a book-addict and have failed to find any for years and years.

 

_For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale's fierce face turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with clenched hands towards my companion._

Watson wishes for a gun because Holmes is threatened. It reminds me of Holmes swearing to Killer Evans that he would kill him if he murdered Watson. It goes both ways.

 

_Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in Holmes's manner which could not be withstood._

Reading such statements is painful because they are so obvious...

 

 _"Should I appeal to the law?_ _Where were my proofs? I knew that the facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside the law, and that_ _ **I have come at last to be a law to myself**_ _._

Dr Leon Sterndale serves as a mirror for Holmes: he determines what is just, and Holmes understands him and lets him go. What is interesting is that Holmes's mirror is a man who committed a crime in revenge because he passionately loved somebody. And we all know that Holmes would kill for Watson (3GAR). 

 

_Perhaps, **if you loved a woman** , you would have done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living who can fear death less than I do."_

_[Holmes lets Sterndale go.]_

_"You would not denounce the man?"_

_"Certainly not," I answered._

_" **I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved** had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows? _

_Two things of importance: a) Sterndale knows/assumes that Holmes does not “love a woman”, and b) we should not believe Holmes's statement for a few valid reasons. Apart from the fact that we know that Holmes is perfectly capable of love, Holmes himself will take Sterndale's stance in 3GAR, and moreover, what Holmes says is a verbal repetition of Sterndale's assertion and really does not sound like something Holmes would say sua sponte._

 

_ And now, my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind [...]." _

Please take a moment to appreciate the singular form of “mind”: they share their thoughts. Beautiful. 

 


End file.
